Well, 6 weeks in Europe goes by a lot quicker than you think.  Turns out I didn’t have any time to blog at all.  Oops –  The extent of my writing efforts went into a personal journal I kept.

But as I reflect on my greatest adventure I am reminded of the goals I made awaiting my departure:

I hope that to try as many new foods as possible.

Check, check, checkedy, check.  This was no challenge for me.  Everyday I woke up thinking: what amazing food am I going to eat today?  Truly, the cuisine in Europe is reason alone to travel there.  I don’t think I had one bad meal in my 6 weeks abroad (apart from the ones I tried to make on my own, I am no cook no matter how hard I try).  Gnocchi, eggplant parmesan, panino, pizza, granite, panna cotta a lot of it was food I’ve had before, but somehow so, so much better!

Oh, and the food culture is the one thing I really miss being back in the states.  How great is it to head over to a fresh market every other day with a handful of euros and come back with so many fresh fruits and veggies? In Italy almost all of the produce is grown within the country, meaning everything was SUPER fresh.  The fruit was the best I’ve ever had.  So fresh, so free from preservatives.  Seriously you could buy a box of strawberries at the market and they would last maybe two days, if your lucky.  But it felt good to be eating food that was so real – and so delicious!

Portions were definitely smaller, but yet still filling.  They were the perfect amount of food, not fill-you-till-you explode portion sizes you get in America.  In Europe I’d walk away from dinner feeling perfectly satisfied, instead of like you are going the throw up (as I do often in America)  In the beginning I was disappointed with the portion sizes, but after I got used to them I began to admire the Italian food culture even more.  Having less food on my plate taught me to take my time eating and really taste the food.  Each meal was carefully crafted to produce the best flavor and I learned to savor every bite!

I hope to meet new people.

Well, this one might not have been fully accomplished.  Going into my trip I hoped to meet a good friend or two (Italian ones) in Italy.  While I definitely met some new people most of them were American girls in my class.  What I didn’t really know going into this trip was how touristy Florence is!  Seriously the place is just packed with tourists, many of them Americans.  So it was hard to really get a sense of the locals in the city because it seemed like there were just tourists everywhere. Plus, most of the actual locals seemed pretty annoyed with all the tourists, and they definitely could tell I didn’t belong there, so they were probably pretty annoyed with me too. Don’t get me wrong, I loveddddd Florence, but it was hard to truly escape the tourists, especially being that I was there at the height of tourist season.

Towards the end of the trip I spent a couple days in Sicily with one of my friends and her aunt (who lives there).  She introduced us to some guys close to our age and we hung out with them one night.  That was an interesting experience where I felt I was learning more about the Italian culture.  Staying in Sicily with a real Italian and a woman who has been living in Europe for about 30 years definitely taught me more about the Italian lifestyle than I ever learned in Florence.

I hope to learn more about the Italian culture.

Going into this study abroad experience I knew practically nothing about the Italian culture.  I really felt bad not taking the time to learn more about it prior to going.  So of course I accomplished this goal no brainier, but there are times when I wish I would have learned more.  But I think that would have came with spending more time abroad.  Much of what I learned about Italians came from observations.  Every new place we went we watched for locals to see how they were behaving.

I remember our first trip to the grocery store.  We had been warned about buying produce at the store (you have to put on a plastic glove, bag your fruit or vegetable, look at the number associated with the item, weigh it on the scale and then plug the number in on the scale so the machine can calculate the price, then it prints out a sticker with the price you pay listed on it).  So the first time we went to the grocery story we were too nervous to buy any produce, the next time we went we watched some Italian do it then bucked up the courage to do it ourselves.  From there on out I loved buying produce.  Such an easy thing to do, but this simple little task felt so rewarding for some reason.  My favorite was when I saw other tourists in the store trying to figure out how to buy the produce and then I got to go over and help them – it made me feel like an expert!

Towards the end of my time abroad I spent a couple days in Sicily with one of my friends and her aunt (who lives there). She introduced us to some guys close to our age and we hung out with them one night. When we got there they had all these cheeses, meats, breads and olives out for us.  They made us dinner, which I guess is pretty typical in Italian culture, but I have NEVER had a guy make me dinner in America – so we were pretty impressed with these boys (should I call them men?).  They were so concerned with making everything perfect for us – they had to have the right music, a variety of beers and wines, a spotless table out on the porch, and someone to entertain us the entire time.  It was really gentleman like of them, and I think that is more of the Italian culture (or maybe I just haven’t met the right American men?)  We also were kind of surprised to learn that both men still lived with their parents (they were in their mid-20’s), which apparently is also typical for Italians.  But the most memorable experience of the night was when they called us out for cutting our pasta.  Actually, they seemed very offended with what we were doing, so they taught us how to correctly eat pasta in Italy.  (Which, in case you were interested, involves a twirling a fork on a spoon – a method I thought was just a made up “Italian” thing Americans do to look fancy).  Turns out that’s how they actually eat pasta!  The night was a lot of fun and I feel like I learned more of what it was like to live in Italy than I ever did while living in Florence.

I hope to live like a local, as opposed to being the typical American tourist.

Live like a local in Florence?  Kind of hard I think, especially when you are there for such a short period of time and all your roommates are Americans.  Plus there are so many dang tourists there and so many dang restaurants and cafes catering to the American culture.

But I did my best to eat more of an Italian diet on Italian time.  This meant maybe a piece of bread for breakfast, (still not really sure what they do for lunch), a snack around 5:00pm, and then a larger dinner around 8:00pm – or should I say 22:00?  The hardest part of this change was how late dinner was! In the first few days we were starving by 6:00pm, but after a while we started to adapt, so if your planning on going to Italy you can too!

I also loved, loved, loved going to the “bar” in the morning.  Yes, you heard me right – the BAR!  Only, in Italy bar’s are places to go and get coffee in the morning.  It’s great, you order your expresso (or in my case a cappuccino because the expresso is way too strong for me), then drink it quick at the bar.  It’s almost like taking a shot, so I guess bar is fitting?  But let me be clear a cappuccino in Italy comes in a tiny little mug (think the size of a shot class in mug form), half filled with expresso and the other half steamed milk.  Add a little sugar, chug it quick at the counter, and off you go to start your day.  Luckily, my professor accompanied us to the bar on our first trip to show us how Italians really do it.  It’s kind of frowned upon to take your expresso and sit down at a table, and in many cases it will cost you more money so don’t do that! Oh, and fair warning – expresso is like a cup of coffee concentrated into a tiny shot.  It’s very bitter, packed with caffeine, and the Italians love it.  It’s definitely an acquired taste, but something you must try at least once while in Italy!  However, as an American it was too intense for me, so I recommend ordering a cappuccino (which is still strong but at-least you can drink it).  Ugh, all this coffee talk really makes me miss the Italian cappuccino and morning trips to the bar.. (sniffle, sniffle).

I hope to go off the beaten path and make my own path.

This goal was probably the one I was least concerned with, and the one I really did not accomplish what so ever.  Every path I took in Europe was beaten, very well beaten by loads and loads of tourists.  If – when – I go back I definitely want to spend time visiting the less touristy areas and find my own hidden gems.  Even if they aren’t as marvelous as things like the Eiffel Tower I think experiencing small towns and avoiding large masses of tourists will invoke a more authentic and personal experience, which are the experiences I’ve learned that I love.  For example, one of my favorite weekends occurred when we visited Cinque Terra (5 small picturesque fisherman villages on the Italian Riveriera).  Here we stayed in a near by village called Bonnasola in a beautiful AirBnB up on a cliff with a rooftop patio that had a fantastic view of the sea.  It was a bit of a challenge finding the place and communicating with the owner (who really didn’t speak English), but those are the adventures that make traveling so fun!  Also, we got to see more of what Italian life was like in this small village with almost no tourists.  Unfortunately I didn’t have many other experiences like this, but I wouldn’t change anything I did this summer.  It just helped me to understand what I want to get out of travel – and I can use this knowledge in my future adventures.

Lastly, I hope to travel as much as possible. 

Cross this off the list of hopes.  In my 42 days abroad I traveled to 7 different countries, flew 14 different times, rode 11 different long distance trains, and learned so much about this great big world we lived in.  Every weekend I was gone to a different city (or sometimes a different country), and the last two weeks I just spent bouncing around Europe.  That is what’s so amazing about that continent, in an hour and twenty minute plane ride I could go from Pisa to Paris.  In an hour and twenty plane ride in American I could go from Minneapolis, Minnesota to maybe Nashville, Tennessee? Those 42 days were definitely a lot of fun, but it was exhausting as well.  I think I slept in a total of 14 different beds, and by the time I was on the plane home I was ready to sleep in my own bed again.  However, in planning this trip it was all about getting to as many countries as I could.  Now I know that I would rather spend a good amount of time in one place and really get to know it instead of just adding to the list of countries I’ve visited.  Although it is pretty cool to see a picture of a place I’ve been on Instagram or TV and shout out “I’ve been there!”